The Mendicant and the Maiden
by CuChulainn X19
Summary: Pyrrha Nikos faces an overwhelming adversary in the Fall Maiden, but time can be rewritten, and her destiny takes a different path with the arrival of a stranded wanderer. The Mendicant has ties to Remnant, but the darkness continues to rise, and all is not as it seems. Slight Doctor Who crossover. First arc complete; on hold.
1. Aner Ex Chronou

Chapter 1. Aner Ex Chronou

Pyrrha completed her attack exactly as intended, with her shield to her adversary's back and Milo at her neck. But the woman in red simply held the sword, her grip slowly heating Milo where she gripped it. Then Milo shattered, and Pyrrha gasped as she felt herself flung backwards. She called her shield to her, ducked and rolled, came up standing and hurled Akouo at the woman who'd broken her sword. At the same moment, the woman formed a bow in her hands from nothing, an arrow coalescing on the bowstring. Shield and missile met in the air, head-on—and the arrow split around her shield and reformed, continuing toward her as if it had never been touched.

She turned to dodge, when the corner of her eye caught a brilliant flare of crackling white light. It lasted only a moment, and when it faded, a man in a long, dark coat and a black, beaked cap was standing between her and the woman in red, his hands clutching his chest. With a bitter grunt, he pulled the arrow—whole—from his chest and cast it aside as he drew a sword from somewhere unseen within his coat.

The blade was at least three feet long—the man's height made it hard to judge—and made of a brilliant blue crystal. The hilt was silver, with a brown leather grip and a bold, classical crossguard; in the tenebrous night atop the tower, the shining blade seemed to glow, a defiant, hopeful note against the darkness.

The man spared a moment to glance over his shoulder at Pyrrha with a craggy face and eyes like a sea god's. "I'd advise you leave, Miss Nikos," he rumbled, his voice as stormy as the rest of him.

He turned back to the woman in red, who had readied a fireball that splashed harmlessly against the angled diamond blade. Then they joined battle in earnest, twisting and leaping around each other in a deadly ballet from which Pyrrha found herself unable to turn. The woman in red seemed to fear the tall man's crystal blade in a way she had utterly disregarded Milo, and Pyrrha found herself hoping.

In an instant, the crystal blade was lodged in the woman's chest, blackish red streaking the half of the blade that had penetrated. She cried out, and dropped to her knees as the victor withdrew his weapon. He pulled a white cloth from his pocket and ran it down the blade, then sheathed it and turned to Pyrrha.

"Alright, kids, show's over. Time to get out of here before things get hairy."

Pyrrha started at the word "kids," only then noticing that Ruby had ascended the tower and was standing next to her. Second, she realized that the stranger was right: the dragon had distanced itself from the tower and now appeared to be preparing for an attack. Neither she nor Ruby could likely do much to harm the monster, so she nodded to the stranger and prepared to grab Ruby and run when she made her third observation: the woman in red had regained her feet and drawn her bow. She made to warn the stranger, but too late.

He whirled around, and the arrow caught him in his right shoulder, just below his collarbone. He gave a pained grunt, ripped the arrow out, and instructed the girls to stay behind him, then stepped laboriously forward.

"Go on, then, agent of darkness. Finish it."

Cinder formed another arrow on her bowstring, and released it dead center into the man's head. He staggered back, pulled it out once more, and flashed an utterly incongruous grin. "Kids? Stay down."

His entire body spasmed, his arms shot out parallel to the ground, and golden fire poured from his head and hands. Pyrrha and Ruby were knocked back and off their feet, where they remained, shielding their eyes from the radiant maelstrom. Cinder, at a farther remove, kept her footing, but still staggered back and bent over, one hand clutching her wound while the other protected her eyes. And as the stranger exploded in light, the dragon had arrived; now,it writhed in the grip of an incredible hurricane, streams of burning energy that struck its skin and rebounded on it again and again, containing the remains of the tower's pinnacle in a swirling, golden sphere.

Finally, it dissipated. The dragon moaned and crashed to the ground, encircling the tower's base like some malign ouroboros. Where the gray-haired, craggy-faced man had stood was a slightly shorter man, his bronze hair falling past his shoulders, whose face when he turned around was young, smoothly angular, and smiling, his stormy eyes now a calm sea-green.

"You just can't leave when you're told, can you?" he asked, smiling only half-reproachfully when he glanced back at Pyrrha and Ruby. His voice had changed, too, retaining its curious accent but now in softer tones. "If you had my luck you'd be dead twice over, instead of just the once. And I don't imagine you can pull a trick like that, now, can you?"

Pyrrha, dumbstruck, failed to respond before another arrow whipped through the air, although somehow the man sensed its approach and turned again to catch it in the chest.

He winced slightly, but otherwise did not react. Then he once more tore out the missile, held out his hand, and caught the diamond sword as it flew to him. He advanced on the woman in red slowly, casually, now, sword clearly ready but held down and to the side, rather than on guard.

"I would really appreciate it if you'd stop doing that, lady," he spoke chidingly to the archer. "In fact," he added, almost cheerfully, "let's see how you like it!"

And with that, the diamond sword flashed up and darted forward, piercing her through the heart. She cried out, and the sword flashed again, striking through her chest just below her throat and stayed there. She gasped in vain, her hands clutching at her wounds, and finally expired. He drew out the sword one final time, and she fell, first to her knees, then down onto her face with a dull thud.

An amber mist drifted slowly from her body, seeping out through the cuts in her back, and stretched its way through the air to Pyrrha, on whom it settled like a second skin before descending into her bones. She breathed in sharply at the sensation—a sudden feeling of tremendous power, a knowledge that hardly anything was beyond her grasp, not to mention the sheer physical feeling of rejuvenation—as harmless flames licked from her hands and around her eyes. It took a moment to get the foreign power under control, but once she did, she felt refreshed and ready to take on a city full of Grimm. Which, she immediately realized, was a good thing given the situation.

The stranger replaced his sword in his now-oversized dark coat, where it vanished to the place whence it had come. He nodded sagely to Pyrrha, who summoned the broken pieces of Milo, which stitched themselves together before her until it was as though the proud weapon had never faltered. Likewise summoning Akouo, he placed both weapons on her back, but turned for one final moment back to the stranger.

"You can call me the Mendicant," he told her. He pulled down the sleeve of his now-oversized jacket, revealing a strange leather brace with a primitive-looking screen embedded in it. "Miss Rose and I will be down right behind you. Or right ahead, if you don't hurry. But there are Grimm to be dealt with"—he glanced at himself with distaste—"and I need a change of clothes."

So speaking, he offered Ruby his arm, tapped a button on the odd contraption, and vanished in a flash of light just like the one in which he'd come. Looking down over the side of the tower, Pyrrha saw the two standing just beyond the body of the frozen dragon. Ruby looked up and waved before both went back to carving their way through the Grimm that surrounded the tower. Taking a moment to assess her new abilities, Pyrrha shrugged internally—was Jaune rubbing off on her? She supposed she could to worse—and dove off the tower.


	2. No Parking

Chapter 2. No Parking

The Tardis wheezed and groaned as the Mendicant darted frantically about the console, trying every trick in the Tardis manual he'd never written to pull his vessel out of the whirlpool it seemed stuck in. A small panel blew off the console, smoke pouring from where it had been, as sparks rained down from the ceiling. Finally, at a distant, echoing boom in the depths of his ship, the Time Lord surrendered.

"Fine!" he yelled at the unresponsive controls. "I give up! Land wherever you bloody want to! I can't make you fly straight anymore, why should I decide where we land? It's not like you've ever run off and gotten us into trouble we didn't need, is it? Oh, wait, that's always you—"

He was thrown from his feet as the time capsule came suddenly to a halt.

"Oh. Yes, let's have it like that, shall we. Now, what sort of hellhole have you put us in this time?" He threw open the doors, and light streamed from behind him to reveal the unconscious body of Sianon Ozpin.

"Shit." The Mendicant swore reflexively, his mood falling from anger to trepidation in an instant. He'd first met Ozpin lifetimes ago, and if something could defeat a warrior of his skill and wisdom, then the entire world of Remnant—if not the universe at large—was in grave peril.

As he looked, however, the green-suited man stirred, recovering his cane as he looked toward the source of the illumination.

"Mendicant. You've held on to this body for a while, I'm glad to see." He paused for breath. "There's no time to catch up—Cinder Fall. She's stolen the Fall Maiden's powers and is headed—up. To the tower. I couldn't hold her off; can you—"

The Mendicant had already turned back into the Tardis. The controls were beyond working in the time frame he likely had—with events like this, it was almost always necessary to remain in the same position relative to one's adversary within the causal nexus—so he dashed down to one of the storage lockers near the control room. A moment's undisciplined rooting rewarded him with a battered Time Agent's vortex manipulator, which he strapped around his wrist as he darted out the door.

"Look after her for me, would you, Oz?"

The exhausted warrior-schoolmaster nodded faintly as he leaned on the doorframe, and the Mendicant punched in the coordinates for the rooftop.


	3. Reunion, Reconstruction, Recreation

Chapter 3. Reunion, Reconstruction, Recreation

Morning on Patch. The smoking ruins of Vale, and of Beacon Academy, were for now only a memory, but the wounds and the damage and the memories were still there, still haunting. At least none of their friends had died.

Had Jaune been anyone else, he would have been furious. Pyrrha had effectively abandoned him, forcing him to flee the battlefield—did she really think he'd miss her that little?—before marching like some selfless hero to what was sure to be her untimely demise. But when he'd seen a brilliant figure, wreathed in flame, raining devastation on the Grimm that surrounded the tower, the terror and adrenaline that had sustained him through the preceding fireworks display had given way to desperate, incredible relief, and he had collapsed against a ruined building. Pyrrha herself had reached him not long afterward, the Mendicant's arrival alone preventing them, exhausted as they were, from falling asleep in a tangle in the middle of Vale.

The Mendicant. Jaune hadn't spoken to him much yet, although Ruby maintained that he was an alien from a distant time and planet, an assertion he supposed was granted some credibility by the stranger's long disappearances into his giant-clock box, which he insisted would help repair the Cross-Continental Transmit System. Whoever he was, Jaune owed him the world. For now, he sat on the roof of Ruby's home, staring out at the forest and the sea.

"Pyrrha?"

"Yes, Jaune?"

"Why did you do it? I don't know what I would have done if you'd left like that. I don't know what any of us would have done. I just need to know why."

Pyrrha put her arm around Jaune, leaning into him as she replied. "I had to do everything I could to protect you, Jaune. To protect everyone. I knew that even both of us together couldn't succeed where Ozpin had failed. We needed help, but someone needed to slow Cinder down, to keep her from winning then and there. I thought—I hoped—that you could get help fast enough—"

"And I failed." Jaune's gaze was hollow, his eyes focused on nothing as he stared ahead and down. "Everything you did to help me, and I still wasn't good enough to help you."

"Don't say that, Jaune," she insisted. "None of us were good enough. Not me, not Ozpin. I have no idea how the Mendicant did what he did. You performed admirably, and I'm very, very proud of you, Jaune. I'm proud of how far you've come, I'm proud of everything you did last night, and—and I love you."

"So then why did you leave me?" Jaune pushed himself out of her half-embrace, gripping her by the shoulders. "I—I heard everything you just said, but I still can't understand why."

"Jaune." It was Pyrrha's turn to look distressed again, as she stepped back and looked down, as if searching for the spot where sea and island met, hidden beneath the cliff's edge. After a moment, she turned back to him, taking his hands in hers, meeting his eyes with her green ones that were filled with emotion. "Do you remember when I asked if you believe in destiny?"

"Uh, yeah. But what's that got to do with this? I thought you said it was your destiny to become a Huntress, not to die when you're still in training."

Pyrrha pulled Jaune in close and hugged him tight. She held the embrace until he reciprocated, and then for a moment more, before she again stepped back.

"I—I asked at the time what you'd do if something completely unexpected happened, something that seemed to stand in the way of your destiny. Only I was wrong about what that something was. When Professor Ozpin offered me the Fall Maiden's powers, it was to protect the part of those powers that the woman we battled had not yet stolen. Our very life forces would have been bound together. But last night, I realized that, if I were going to be a Huntress, I couldn't let anything stop me from trying to help people, even if that meant my own death. Most Huntsmen and Huntresses don't live to a peaceful retirement, Jaune, and in the world we find ourselves in now, that's even more unlikely. I would never want to leave you, Jaune, but more than that I had to do everything I could to protect you."  
"I don't want you to protect me!"

"I know. I didn't mean it like that. I'm sorry, Jaune. But if that situation ever happens again, I still won't hesitate to place your life above mine."

"I—I guess I understand. As long as you know I'd do the exact same."

"I suppose I can live with that."  
"You'd better, because I'm staying right here. And as far as I'm concerned, we both have long lives ahead of us, and I'd really like to face them together."

"That sounds wonderful."

Downstairs, Ozpin, Qrow, Ironwood, and the Schnees were locked in a heated argument while Ren quickly vacated the kitchen, platter of pancakes in hand, to make room for the vicious quarrel.

"She is my daughter! I will not allow her to remain in this kingdom! We are returning— _all_ of us—to Atlas, where it is _safe_."

Qrow snorted, taking a sip from his flask. " _Safe?_ It's not safe anywhere, Stark. Half the damage that was done last night was the fault of your crazy robots."

Stark Schnee cast a dark look at Qrow, his flask in particular, but Ironwood stepped in before he could respond. "Qrow is right. I don't know how they did it, but someone got on board one of our ships last night and was able both to destroy all of our other cruisers and to take control of the androids and the Paladins. With our technology at risk and the other kingdoms having seen nothing more or less than Atlesian military assets being unleashed on the citizens of another kingdom—in the middle of the Vytal festival, no less— _and_ the revelation of our experiments into artificial sentience, Atlas is neither particularly safe nor in good standing with the other kingdoms. If you want to return, that is fine, and someone does need to in order to take action against future security breaches. But your daughter is safest, both physically and developmentally, if she stays with her team, and stays here."

"I'm right here," Weiss spoke up for the umpteenth time that morning. "And for the record, I agree with the general. There's no reason to believe that Atlas is any safer than here, and at least here I have my friends with me. Yang and Blake are both badly hurt, and we've all been through a great deal in the past few days. I'm staying."

"Listen here," Stark frowned, his mustache quivering in anger.

"Miss Schnee is right," Ozpin interrupted him. "And so are Qrow and James. Our priority now has to be the restoration of the Cross-Continental Transmit System, and the priority of our students should be their full emotional and physical recovery. Your daughter herself has said, and I am inclined to agree with her, that here, with her team, is the best place for all of them to do that."

Stark sighed. "Very well. Winter and I will return to Atlas and begin work on securing our technology from hostile takeover. General, I trust you will follow once the CCTS is restored. Gentlemen, daughter, good day."

With that, he swept heavily out of the room and allowed the door to shut just as heavily behind him. Almost as soon as he was gone, Ozpin's scroll rang.

"Miss Schnee," the headmaster said kindly, "why don't you go join your friends for breakfast and share the good news."

Weiss would have preferred to see how someone was calling Ozpin's scroll with the CCTS down, but she accepted her professor's dismissal, anticipating that any significant news relating to the CCTS would soon be common knowledge.

When Ozpin opened his scroll, the Mendicant was on the other end.

"Hey, Oz. I'm making a direct call from my ship to your scroll for the moment, but I think I've figured out a way to temporarily restore the CCTS. I'm going to need some help to get this old thing upstairs, but if Glynda or Miss Nikos has the energy, we'll have communications back online across the planet as soon as they can get to the vault."

Ozpin nodded. "I believe Glynda remained in Vale overnight, and she is likely exhausted. However, Miss Nikos should be able to reach Beacon fairly quickly, and Miss Nikos and Mister Arc are already aware of the vault and its location. I take it this means you will be staying with us for some time?"

On screen, the Mendicant gave a dithering shrug. "For a while, at least. You're probably right about Glynda; she's been working nonstop since the battle ended, and I'm not sure how she's still on her feet. Alright, send the kids over, staying cooped up won't be any good for the ones who aren't badly hurt. Repairing the actual control tower will take more than just Glynda having a rest, or I'd never have given a thought to this, but I suppose I'll actually be making myself useful around here. See you later, Oz."

The image on Ozpin's scroll winked out. The headmaster nodded to Qrow, who turned headed up after Ren.

"So, how exactly did you do that thing with the fire and the changing faces?"

The Mendicant laughed at Jaune's expression. Since the previous night, he had managed to change into a dark, vibrant, flower-print shirt, a long, blue coat (in contrast to his previous long, black one), and buckled boots beneath rolled, suspendered pants. "There's more things scattered across the folds of space and time than are dreamt of in most philosophies, kid," he answered. "I may look human, but I'm not really. My people are from a lost planet, far away, called Gallifrey. We are known across the universe as Time Lords, and one of the things that makes us most remarkable is that every one of us has thirteen lives. Cinder Fall was a dangerous fighter, but we remain incredibly good healers for hours after we die and regenerate."

"So when you allowed her to shoot you, you took away her ability to actually harm you," Pyrrha marveled.

"More or less. There are ways to kill a Time Lord, but they aren't quite common knowledge, and as powerful as she was, there are more dangerous creatures out there. The real trick was the sword. A crystal-metal lattice composed in the time-flux forges of Canavis Major, capable of piercing almost any energy shield or psionic defenses. The people it was made for were not nice ones, but I've put it to good use on a few occasions since I met them. Yes, I stole it. Much like the Tardis here. Now, just a moment."

He ducked inside, and the beacon atop the hexagonal clock chamber lit up a brilliant blue-green. Jaune glanced at Pyrrha.

"How much of that do you think is true?" he asked her.

"After what I saw last night? I honestly can't think of any other explanation."

Before they could continue, the Mendicant reappeared. "Excellent. Lines of communication are back up across Remnant, which means your headmaster and General Ironwood—and I don't envy him—are going to have some explaining to do for the frightened, ignorant masses, especially the frightened, ignorant masses of Mistral and Vacuo, plus the leaders of those particular kingdoms. Anyhow, you two get on back to your friends—give my regards to your teammates, by the way—and I'll just put the finishing touches on restoring a few minor conveniences around here."

The Mendicant drew a metal stick fitted with buttons, lights, and a weapon-like emitter end—his electrostatic spanner, he'd explained, whatever that meant—, saluted the students with it, and vanished once more into his strange machine. Jaune and Pyrrha shared another glance at one another; looked out over the city, the bay, and the morning sun; and headed for the elevator they'd repaired on their way up.


	4. Farewells and Fairytales

Chapter 4. Farewells and Fairytales

Even with the CCTS restored, neither the governments of Vacuo and Mistral nor the headmasters of Haven and Shade were eager to resume the Vytal tournament. Ozpin and Ironwood had ended the teleconference with heavy hearts, knowing much remained to be done in the interests of repairing trust and cooperation. However, the impending return of Teams ABRN, BRNZ, and especially SSSN provided an opportunity of its own, one that Qrow and Team JNPR could capitalize on.

"Are you sure about this, Oz? Using kids as ambassadors could really bite us if it doesn't work out." Qrow, pessimistic as ever, took another sip from his flask as he leaned against the wall, looking at the headmaster with a dark skepticism.

Ozpin regarded him as coolly as ever, taking a sip from one of Taiyang's undecorated coffee mugs.

"The people of Mistral and Vacuo deserve an explanation, and who better to deliver that explanation than the huntsmen and huntresses in training who were here at the time? Granted, Team SSSN may be considered unreliable given their connection with Team RWBY, but people are nervous right now. The truth will reassure them, and as long as we remain ahead of our enemies, no one should have reason to doubt it. Besides, there are larger issues to focus on right now."

"And Ironwood? What are you gonna do about his secret little programs?" Ozpin sighed.

"I wasn't completely happy with his explanation for keeping Miss Polendina secret from us, either. But I have his word that there will be a moratorium on that kind of experimentation for the time being, and Penny herself is a valuable ally, and a good friend to Miss Rose."

Qrow sighed. Ruby had certainly been distraught at the android girl's destruction, and as much as he didn't trust Ironwood, and trusted his robots and the rest of Atlas even less, Qrow had to admit that Penny Polendina herself was an entirely different question. He nodded.

"Fine. I'll watch the teams from Mistral and see if there's anything else to find over there. Do we have an eye in Vacuo at all, or are we just hoping evil doesn't like the desert?"

An eyebrow raised itself on Ozpin's face. Oops. He'd have to back off the sarcasm when he wasn't so intoxicated. For the moment, he listened to Ozpin's response and dismissal, then went on his way to prepare for another cross-continental espionage mission.

That evening, three teams gathered in the suddenly-cramped kitchen of the Rose-Xiao Long house on Patch. Sun and Blake stayed by one another's side the whole night, in part—though only in part—so that Sun could support Blake after her injury. Ruby, Qrow, Taiyang, and Weiss took turns keeping company with Yang, who was still recovering from her disastrous fight with Adam. Jaune and Pyrrha were stuck fast to one another, while Weiss occasionally glanced over at Sage, who was busy with Scarlet, Ren, and Nora; the pirate and the grenadier were laughing their heads off, while Sage and Ren appeared, somehow, to be deep in conversation.

They talked, laughed, ate, and made plans and promises to reunite in the future. Ruby gave a toast to their friendships and futures with a glass of cookie-inflected milk, then emptied her glass before anyone else could raise theirs. Jaune and Pyrrha kissed again, to cheers and later complaints from Yang that she hadn't been there. Taiyang and the Mendicant argued over whether Yang's prosthetic should be made with Atlesian or Gallifreyan technology.

Eventually, word of the Mendicant's identity and age made their way around the room, coupled with the rumor that he had, in fact, been to Remnant before, and a gradual silence came over the kitchen as everyone looked to the Time Lord expectantly. He sighed, took a sip from Qrow's flask—the Huntsman snatched it back, not having noticed its theft before—and gathered himself, resting a new staff on his knees. At last, he began.

"As I think you've all heard by now, I am not human, nor am I from this world at all. I am a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, which orbits a star in the constellation of Kasterborous, many universes apart from this one. Ages ago, my people waged a war, the Time War, against a race of beings called the Daleks, creatures filled with a hate fiercer and more purposeful than that of the Grimm. They sought to eradicate all life in the universe, in every universe. My people fought them, but it was a difficult struggle. Much was lost, only to be regained and lost again, and eventually we were near defeat, and it was in what seemed like one of the last of these battles that my story and the story of the Time Lords diverges.

"In the darkest hours—or days, aeons, it doesn't matter—in the darkest times of the Time War, the creator of the Daleks, a man called Davros, unleashed plagues even more terrible than his fondest creations. Among those were the Skaro Degradations, creatures of shadow and fear, of chaos and evil. To you, they are known as the creatures of Grimm."

"But how did they get here?" The question came from Ruby, and was greeted with a sad smile.

"The same way I did. It was at the Siege of Kalepsis Five. I was locked in a battle with the Skaro Degradations when an arm of the shadow slipped aboard my Tardis. Something went wrong, a wrench came up in her gears, and we tore a hole in the fabric of time and all fell through together. The hole sealed the moment we were through, and now I wander the multiverse, trying to find a crack in the walls through which I can slip to get back home. I've been keeping an eye on the Degradations, too; I tracked them here some time ago, but until my Tardis and Professor Ozpin brought me to the aid of Miss Nikos, even this universe had slipped away from me."

"So what now?" This time, the question came from Sun, who wore an unusually somber expression. Qrow spoke up.

"I'll follow your team back to Mistral, and we'll make sure everything there is under control. Might not hurt to have Team JNPR visit around Winterfest, either, but that's something for Ozpin to consider. Meanwhile, the Mendicant will be my counterpart in Vacuo, and you all will rest, recover, and keep training. You can all tell how unprepared we were this time, and if we want to win we'll have to be able to bring these battles to their turf on our terms. And everyone else will work to rebuild."

The rest of the evening was a more somber affair, as everyone's thoughts turned to the coming struggle, and no one seemed willing to make an attempt at resurrecting the earlier good humor. Nora and Ruby were silent, and even Sun refrained from cracking wise. At last, Sun saw Blake up to rest, JNPR and SSSN spread themselves out on the larger, softer pieces of furniture in the house, and the rest of the permanent and temporary inhabitants had retired, save one. The Mendicant picked up his staff and quietly slipped out the door. It was time to start thinking about how to truly end the Degradations.

The next morning, after SSSN and Qrow had departed, Ozpin stood alone atop the cliff by the Beacon docks, facing out toward the ruins of Vale. On far left platform, a long-range transport sat idling. As he watched the late sunrise, he recalled his long-ago admonishment of a young Qrow Branwen: "They don't give out medals for second place." Of course, Team STRQ had been awarded silver in that year's Vytal Tournament.

Someone had come up behind him as he was thinking, and now they spoke. "Time I headed out, Oz. Keep me up to speed, and don't hesitate to call if something comes up. Mistral's where all the action is, anyhow."

It was the Mendicant. Ozpin sighed in self-recrimination. "I should thank you," he began. "If you hadn't interfered, this could all have gone much worse, and I'm afraid a great deal of that is my own fault."

The Mendicant chucked. "Everything could always go worse, Oz, and everything could always go better. You aren't the only one who's made mistakes over the years." He laughed again, mirthlessly. "For that matter, where's that sister of Qrow's? Anyways, be careful with the Tardis. As soon as you're ready to reinstall the CCT—or if anything happens at all—call me. The old girl can take care of herself, but only to a point, and I'll be damned if I let those creatures get ahold of her."

He stopped abruptly, closing off the mental floodgates that last thought had threatened to open. "One last thing: Ruby Rose. She'll need a mentor; I doubt we'll be able to do this without her abilities, and we don't have long now." Holding his staff, he stood beside Ozpin and looked out across the ruined city.

"I've left behind situations far more dire than this, Oz. There's a time and a place for that. But we have a chance to end this here and now, and I'd do a lot more than just take the slow path for a little while if that's what I get in return."

The waiting transport was the Time Lord's ride to Vacuo, and the Mendicant raised a hand as he stepped aboard. "We'll share a glass of that Corellian brandy I gave you when I get back, eh? For old times' sake."

Ozpin nodded in reply. "For old times' sake, my friend."

The transport's hatch closed, and the vessel lifted off into the sky. Ozpin looked back out across the city and sighed once more.

"For old times' sake, and so much more."


End file.
